NASA rover Curiosity lands on Mars with no problems

As the Mars rover Curiosity entered the seven minutes of terror, NASA's crew on ground were in a festive mood. When it was announced the rover hit the ground successfully, cheers rang out.

Watching the event via NASA's live feed, it was tense in the command centre as audio was lost for a few minutes as the $2.5-billion Mars Science Laboratory's deployment to the surface of Mars took place. This was expected, as there is a seven-minute delay because of the distance.

At 1:32 a.m. August 6, 2012 the group broke into hugs as it was announced Curiosity was safely on Mars and that images were about to appear.

The first image to appear was:

First image from Curiosity

NASA

The image was one of the wheels down on Mars and more images quickly came through.